The Cardinals chairman joined our Chris Hrabe before Sunday's game to explain the reasoning behind last night's personnel change.

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - St. Louis Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. pointed out that Mike Matheny never had a losing season in his six and half years at the helm. However, he explains, the thing that makes managing so difficult is, "as time goes on sometimes, there's only so much you can do."

DeWitt has never fired a manager until now, why was this move necessary?

"We value continuity and I think it's served us well over the years. On the other hand you can't just value continuity for continuity sake. The real goal here is to win and we have won, we've won with Mike as manager. But this year just hasn't gone as we had all hoped and I know he was disappointed in how the club had done. He was optimistic, certainly we're optimistic on the future and in the second half. But we also felt that changing it up gave us a better opportunity to turn it around and make a great run for the playoffs."

The Cardinals at one game above .500 this season are now closer to the bottom of the NL Central than the top. What does this move say to the fans?

"Some cities finish .500 and they feel good about it, we don't feel good about it in St. Louis, that's not our history and that's not our goal, and that's not what we're all about here. So, what we try to do is win every year ... Of course no one wins every year. No franchise wins every year. But we have that goal and we make that effort. And when we see an opportunity to to get closer to that goal we need to seize it."